


Loveblind

by ravenbringslight



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Pre-Thor (2011), Sibling Incest, loki being a chaotic disaster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2020-09-23 18:23:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20344630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenbringslight/pseuds/ravenbringslight
Summary: Loki is fairly certain that he and Thor have been flirting for months.The only problem is that, suddenly, Thor can't remember him at all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is for moopz, who won a giveaway from me and requested Thor with amnesia! I hope you enjoy!

Loki sips his mead and makes disinterested _hmm_-ing noises while Lorelei prattles in his ear. The Midsummer Ball is in full swing around them. Half of Asgard has come to the palace to make merry, and as far as Loki’s concerned, they can all go away—back to where they came from, or down a bottomless pit, or Bifrosted straight into a volcano on Muspelheim—he isn’t picky.

He only has eyes for one person tonight.

Thor is over by the life-sized replica of Odin made entirely out of fruit (which Loki finds abhorrently tacky but also hilarious), trying to get out of his own conversation with Amora. It had been sneaky of Amora and Lorelei to ambush them in the five minutes it took Loki to relieve himself, although, to be fair, he and Thor have been stuck so closely together all night that ambush was the only hope the sisters had of talking to either Odinson at all.

Loki doesn’t make a particular habit of being fair though, and certainly not to the Enchantress or her irksome little sister.

“I’m sorry,” Loki says when Lorelei pauses for breath. “Is there a point to this?”

“To what?” Lorelei says, her brow wrinkling in confusion. “The part about the horses, or—”

“To you. Talking to me.”

Lorelei huffs out a delightfully affronted screech and Loki stares at her coolly, one brow raised.

“I—you—UGH.” She turns on her heel and flounces, and Loki takes another sip of his mead and hides his smile in his cup.

Just as he anticipated, Lorelei flounces directly over to Amora and hisses in her ear. Amora makes an apologetic simpering face at Thor (does she _know_ how unconvincing it looks?) and then lets Lorelei drag her away.

“Thank you,” Thor says when Loki reinserts himself at Thor’s side. He throws his arm over Loki’s shoulders, a companionable, brotherly gesture that turns decidedly less so when he lets his hand drag down Loki’s arm and brush against the small of his back as he pulls away.

“You looked like you needed the help,” Loki smirks. He knocks his shoulder into Thor’s. Thor knocks him back and they laugh, and come to rest with their sleeves brushing, the backs of their knuckles skimming. The contact feels like a live wire. Loki’s belly flutters in nervous excitement.

Norns, it’s been months of this. Touching. Looking. Teasing. _Flirting_. Loki doesn’t even remember who started it, but he knows that he’s been pushing it. Trying to find the limit. Telling himself that it was all for a good laugh, that he just wanted to see how far Thor would let it go. 

Tonight, though…

Tonight feels different. Important, somehow. The moment Loki had entered the Great Hall earlier, Thor’s eyes had gone to him, and Loki had gone to Thor like a moth to a flame, and it was like an unspoken contract had been signed. Loki has been thrumming under his skin ever since.

“Prince Thor! Prince Loki!”

A man is bowing to them, and Loki clicks his tongue in irritation. It’s Lord Ragnar, one of his father’s most insipid bootlickers. Loki can hardly put up with him on his most patient of days, and right now he is anything but.

“My congratulations on an absolutely stunning affair,” Ragnar says, “simply amazing, why the centerpieces alone—”

“A stunning likeness, don’t you think?” Loki says, gesturing to the Allfather-shaped fruit monstrosity. “Have you tried one of the buttocks? They’re made of an extremely rare melon imported from Alfheim. A bit dry and stringy for my tastes I’m afraid, but you may find it quite to your liking—”

“I’m sorry for my brother,” Thor interjects quickly, taking Loki by the elbow. Lord Ragnar's face is turning an alarming shade of purple. “The mead is extremely strong tonight. Please excuse us, Lord Ragnar.”

Then Thor is hauling Loki out into the warm evening air, and Loki is struggling not to laugh.

“Loki,” Thor admonishes, but his voice is full of laughter as well. “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I wanted to get out of that party,” Loki says. “It seems to have worked.”

“You have a wicked tongue,” Thor says, and Loki grins at him, his belly fluttering again.

Thor hasn’t let go of his arm.

The Great Hall opens into the formal gardens, and they’re hardly alone here. There are at least a dozen others who have escaped for some air as well. Light is spilling from the open doors across the grass, and the air is heavy with the scent of moonflowers.

“This way?” Thor murmurs, nodding his head almost imperceptibly towards the hedge maze. Loki tightens his arm around Thor’s in answer.

They slip into the darkness of the hedges. They’ve been playing in this maze since they were very small children, and they know all the paths. Thor turns left at the intersection with the gargoyle peering out of the leaves, and Loki knows that he’s taking them to their fountain.

At least, Loki thinks of it as their fountain. It’s in a rarely-found dead end. They used to hide there to escape lessons or their parents’ wrath when they were young, and council meetings when they were older in years but not in maturity, and heartbreak when even being Princes didn’t stop them from getting spurned by lovers.

Thor lets go of Loki’s elbow, but it’s only to take his hand instead. They look at each other in the darkness. They _know_.

Thor finally breaks away when they get to their fountain. Loki stays where he is, statue still, and Thor goes over to the fountain and puts both hands on the stone lip at the edge, leaning over to look down into the water. Moonflowers vines have grown all over and around the bowl of the basin and their sweet perfume fills the air.

“Throw in a copper and you can make a wish,” Loki says. He’s extraordinarily proud of himself for getting the entire thought out without his voice shaking. He doesn’t know what to do with himself. With his face. His hands.

“Brother,” Thor breathes. His voice does shake. Oddly, that’s what gives Loki courage.

Loki takes one step towards him, then another. His hand makes contact with the small of Thor’s back and Thor sighs. He drags his hand up Thor’s spine and clasps his neck, the way that Thor often does to him, and Thor leans into his touch. There is still mead on Thor’s lips and he smells like honey and sunlight concentrated together. It seems fitting.

Gently, oh so gently, Loki puts one finger on Thor’s jaw and coaxes his face up.

They stare at each other for a long moment. Loki thinks he’ll remember it forever. The moonlight painting Thor’s face silver, the open and honest look in his eyes—he’s like one of the moonflowers surrounding them, blossoming here on this Midsummer night. Loki is trembling internally, like his insides have turned into a quaking aspen tree.

Hardly daring to breathe, Loki tilts his face down. Just slightly. Just enough that if Thor tilted too, they could—maybe they could— But they both have to want it. Loki won’t close this entire distance himself, he has to _know_ that he’s not the only one exposing his tender underbelly here. He’s never been more terrified in his life. What if—

And then Thor is tearing away from him. 

Instantly, Loki is shaking and _furious_. He opens his mouth, bitter invective on the tip of his tongue, but then he realizes—Thor is doubled over in pain. His brother has fallen to his knees, clutching his stomach and groaning. Loki’s anger instantly turns into panic.

“Thor…?” Loki says. Thor only moans in response, then retches.

Loki rushes over. Thor’s face is pale and sweat has sprung up on his forehead. Loki begins running his hands over him, checking him with his seidr. He can’t find any curses or hexes.

“Can you speak?” Loki says. “Thor, speak to me.”

“Hurts,” Thor manages to grunt. His hands dig into his own belly. Loki has never seen his brother laid out so thoroughly so _quickly_ before.

“Ymir’s _balls_,” Loki spits. “Up, up, come on, get up.”

He gets his shoulder under Thor’s armpit and hauls him upright.

“One foot in front of the other,” Loki says. “Norns, I wish I could use your blasted hammer. Come on.”

They stagger through the maze, Loki half dragging Thor the entire way, his heart pounding. Thor will be fine, he tells himself. He’s been bitten by venomous snakes before. Endured battle wounds. Got gored by a bilgesnipe once. This is probably just food poisoning. Just food poisoning at the worst possible moment that it could strike (the _worst possible fucking moment_). That’s all. He won’t entertain any other possibility.

“Get help!” Loki yells when they finally make it to the gardens, Thor hanging off his neck like the world’s heaviest sack of potatoes. His face is ghost pale now, his breathing shallow. All conversation ceases as people turn to stare at them. 

Loki’s voice cracks. “Someone get help, please, my brother, he’s _dying_.”

*

Thor is whisked off to Eir in the healing wing immediately, with Loki tagging along like a lost puppy.

“Your fretting isn’t going to help,” Eir tells him. “Prince Thor will be fine. Go get some sleep.”

As if Loki would ever possibly be able to sleep after almost kissing his brother and then watching him keel over like he’d been poisoned. And there it is, the thought he’s been avoiding. Poison. 

Once back in his rooms, he distracts himself from the “almost kissing my brother” part by mentally running over the guestlist of the ball. Was anyone there who might have intended Thor harm? Anyone who Thor had made an enemy of, or who their father might have made an enemy of? Ascribing the worst possible motives to every face he can remember, Loki whittles his list down to five people who might have both the motive and means to want to poison a Crown Prince. He’ll pay them each a visit tomorrow. Yes.

Satisfied, he tries to sleep.

He can’t sleep.

He almost _kissed his brother_.

He still thrums electric under his skin.

Throwing his covers off, he starts tearing through his books. Looking up poisons. Seeing if he can match anything to Thor’s symptoms. He finds three likely contenders and adds them to his list of suspects. It’s nearly dawn. 

He hasn’t thought about almost kissing Thor in nearly an entire hour, so it’s well past time to get stuck on that again.

Here in the wee hours of the morning his mind starts to run in ever-tighter circles. What if everything he thought he knew about whatever was going on between him and Thor was wrong? What if he’d only been seeing what he wanted to see? Worse, what if Thor had only been humoring him? Or waiting to see how far Loki would go so that he could laugh about it afterwards?

Loki is wild-eyed and wild-haired by the time the sun finally rises. He uses his seidr to smooth out the worst of it and throws a dressing robe on and catches the first page he can find running down the hallway.

“You!” Loki barks. “Where is Thor? Is he still in the healing wing?”

“Milord, he’s in his rooms milord,” the girl stammers. She visibly screws up her courage. “He’s the talk of the palace, milord, is he alright—”

Loki is already waving his hand at her to cut her off, and he’s off down the hallway to Thor’s room. If Thor is already out of the healing wing, then everything must be ok. He’s so keyed up that even that thought isn’t enough to calm him.

He knocks on the door and then pushes his way in without even waiting for an answer. He’s just going to pretend he’s totally fine. That everything is totally fine. That everything is perfectly, one hundred percent, totally—

“Good morning, brother!” Loki says, throwing Thor’s curtains open. "Feeling better, I hope?" To his utter relief, Thor is a familiar lump under the covers. Maybe it _was_ just food poisoning. Loki himself had eaten some bad oysters on Midgard once and wished for death for the next two days.

Thor stirs and covers his eyes to protect them from the sunlight.

“You can just set my breakfast over there,” Thor says sleepily.

“I didn’t bring breakfast,” Loki says.

Thor blinks and finally looks at him.

“Then why are you here?”

Loki scoffs to hide the slight that Thor’s words cause. “Honestly, Thor.” He sits down on the side of Thor’s bed and goes to put his hand on Thor’s forehead to see if he’s still feverish from last night, and Thor catches his wrist, face steely.

“Excuse me,” Thor says. “Your familiarity oversteps.”

Loki yanks his hand back, irritated. “You know, if you’re unhappy about last night you can just say so, there’s no need for whatever this is—”

“I’ve never seen you before in my life and if you don’t vacate my chambers immediately I’ll have the guards haul you out in chains.”

Loki blinks, for once in his life at a complete loss.

Thor glares back at him, and there is no recognition in his eyes at all.

“Brother,” Loki says, his heart falling. “What’s happened to you?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> upping the chapter count by one bc my pacing sucks 😂

The next few days are the most surreal of Loki’s life.

Loki goes to their mother, who remembers him quite well, thankyouverymuch, and he isn’t hysterical, he _isn’t_. Frigga goes to Thor, and Thor goes back to the healing wing to be thoroughly poked, prodded, examined, and otherwise annoyed by a bevy of healers and mages and even Frigga and Odin themselves, and they all come to the same conclusion: 

Thor had been taken with a sudden illness. He has recovered quickly and completely. Physically, he is as healthy as he’s ever been—which is healthier than most people can ever hope to be in their entire miserable lives. His body is hale and whole. His mind is unclouded. No amount of seidr can detect any spells, curses, hexes, or anything else magical upon his person. In fact, there appears to be absolutely nothing wrong with him whatsoever.

Except for one thing.

He cannot remember Loki at all.

Thor knows Frigga and Odin and Eir and his friends and all the palace staff (really, _all_ the palace staff, which Loki finds both unnecessary and actually a bit smug). He knows the names of the _horses_, for pity’s sake, and even the cats who live in the stables. He can draw a map of the palace from memory. He can recite the royal houses and their lineages both from Asgard and from every single one of her protectorates. He can still speak Groot, of all things.

And yet, when asked of his brother, Thor says, “Forgive me, but I have never had a brother.”

It might be hilarious if it didn’t make Loki want to scream his throat raw.

Thor spends the night under Eir’s care, and Loki accompanies Frigga on her visit the next day. He’s there while she explains to Thor that, yes, he does have a brother. His brother is Loki. Loki who is standing right here. Yes, they’ve grown up together. Thor, darling, you’ve been ill. It’s done something to your mind. _But the healers say there’s nothing wrong with my mind_. There is, my sweet boy. Look, your brother stands right there. Do you not remember him at all? Even a little bit? _I’m sorry. I don’t know him. I’m sorry._

Every word is a dagger piercing Loki’s heart.

None of the poisons on Loki’s list are able to account for this. He crumples the thing up and then burns it.

Eir keeps Thor again. “We’ll put him in the Soul Forge while he sleeps,” she tells Loki. “Perhaps his sleeping mind may reveal secrets that his waking mind does not.”

It doesn’t.

“Don’t you remember,” Loki tries the next afternoon, his voice faltering _...how three nights ago you held my hand in the moonlight, and I nearly kissed you?_ is what he wants to say, but instead he says, “When Father sent us as ambassadors to Vanaheim for the first time, and we spent the whole trip shirking our duties to explore the countryside? Do you remember the waterfall we found, how the grass was purple on the banks beneath it?”

“I remember the trip and the grass,” Thor says, “but I was alone.”

Sif is there today, and she gives it a try. “What about the time on Nornheim?” she says. “When we ended up surrounded?”

Loki and Sif don't often see eye-to-eye, but on the rare occasions that concern for Thor unites them, Loki is glad of her company. She’s the only one who cares even a tenth as much about Thor as he does and they both know it.

“Yes, of course I remember,” Thor says. He’s a little short; they’ve been grilling him all day. “We barely escaped—”

“We only escaped because Loki hid us with smoke,” Sif says. How it must gall her to admit that, but she does, and Loki is so grateful he could hug her. Could, but doesn’t. He has limits.

Thor’s brow furrows. “We escaped because we are mighty and we slew all the enemies who stood in our way.”

Sif’s eyes are tight and concerned.

“I wish you all would stop looking at me like that,” Thor says. “I’m fine.”

Loki covers his mouth with his hand and turns away. Thor sighs.

“I’m sorry,” Thor says, and he does sound apologetic. “It’s just… It’s hard to accept. Loki, you seem like a very fine person. And I trust you, Sif, and I trust Mother and Father, and even Eir, and if you all tell me that Loki is my brother then I must believe you. But no matter how I pummel my brain I can make no sense of it. I wish you all would let me out of here and stop pushing at me. Maybe if I went back about my life in the palace it would help me to remember things.”

“I ‘seem like a very fine person,’” Loki says, and gives a little laugh with no joy.

He looks back over at Thor sidelong. He can hardly stand looking at Thor’s face at all these past few days, much less full-on. Thor, who used to look at him like he was something dear and now looks at him like a stranger. He’s looking at Loki like that right now, and it does not-good things to Loki’s chest.

Loki huffs another joyless laugh. “Norns. I feel like I’m going mad.”

“I’m sorry,” Thor says, for the thousandth time.

Loki can’t bear another moment of it, and he excuses himself.

He locks himself in his rooms and flings himself onto his bed and covers his head with a pillow like a child. He lets out an experimental sob, which feels so good he does it again, and again, until he’s got a nice little breakdown going.

He had no idea he could hurt quite this badly. He feels like he’s died. Like he’s a ghost. Like he never mattered at all.

Thor is _right there_ and yet Loki has never missed anyone more in his life. He sobs into his pillows.

And the worst part, by far, is that while Loki misses his brother like a lost limb, Thor doesn't miss him at all. It makes Loki want to shake him until his teeth rattle, beat his hands against Thor’s chest, scream, make himself unable to be ignored, unable to be forgotten. 

What sort of illness could affect a brain in such a matter, excising a single person completely? And why Loki, and not someone else?

_Why Loki_?

Loki suddenly sits up, knocking pillows off of himself and onto the floor, and wipes at his tear-sodden face. His heart is hammering.

_Why **Loki**_?

Maybe they’ve all been looking in the wrong place. Maybe Thor’s illness was just a coincidence. Maybe this strange selective amnesia is no illness at all, and no undetectable spell either.

Maybe it’s _Loki_ who is cursed.

*

It’s a week later and Loki isn’t cursed.

Or, at least, he’s reasonably certain he isn’t.

The list of people, creatures, and entities who might want to curse Loki is as long as his arm, and he doesn’t want his father or, gods forbid, his _mother_ to find out about any of them, so he’s spent the last week up to his eyeballs in research himself, spending every waking moment either in the library or in his lab doing tests.

He turns up Nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. Zilch.

While he’s busy turning up nothing, Thor is released from the healers’ care. Loki knows this in an abstract way just from picking up conversations in the air, but he hasn’t actually seen Thor himself since he left him with Sif the other day. He’s been far too busy researching, and the idea of searching Thor out just to see the empty look in his eyes is far too painful; better to stay away and find the cure.

If only it weren’t looking more and more like there is no cure to be found.

One gloomy afternoon Loki is walking back to his rooms from the library muttering to himself when, in his obliviousness, he flat out runs into Thor and bounces off of him.

Or, rather, he runs into Thor and _Amora_.

It’s her tittering laugh assaulting his ears as he picks himself up off the floor (he’d much rather just stay on his back and stare at the ceiling and pray for death in the face of this indignity, but he can’t give her the satisfaction).

“Oh my,” Amora says. “Thor, I didn’t think the servants usually left garbage littering the hallways.”

“_Amora_,” Thor chastises gently.

Loki straightens his tunic and pushes his hair back. “As ever, you’re as charming as you are beautiful.” He bares his teeth at Amora in something approximating a smile and tries not to look at Thor.

“Forgive me,” Thor says to Loki, voice hatefully formal, “I didn’t see you.”

“He was distracted,” Amora says. She slips her arm through Thor’s and smiles sweetly at Loki.

Loki thinks he may pop a blood vessel. Clearly he’s made a terrible miscalculation leaving his brother alone for any length of time. Amora has been trying to weasel her way into Thor’s bed for years (and her sister into Loki’s). She appears to have made more headway in the last week than she has in the last decade.

“Brother,” Loki says, “I didn’t realize your lapse in memory extended to anyone other than me. Else you’d not be giving this vulture the time of day.”

“He remembers _me_ perfectly well,” Amora says before Thor can finish opening his mouth. “Some of us are just more noteworthy than others.”

Something in the tone of her voice is at odds with her words, or maybe it’s the set of her eyes; either way, Loki feels the back of his neck prickle. A stone settles into his stomach.

“I fear I’m at a bit of a loss,” Thor says. “Obviously you two have a history, though I have no idea what it is. I’m sorry to have upset you both.”

“I’m not upset,” Loki says, upset. Thor is looking at him in a kind, slightly condescending fashion that makes him want to punch him in the face. Loki is rapidly losing whatever meager amount of cool he may have possessed and a hasty retreat is necessary before he does something rash. 

“Good day to you both,” Loki says, and flees.

*

Loki has breakfast with Frigga the next morning out on her balcony at her request. Several of the palace ravens join them and she feeds them crumbs from her scones with her fingers. They nip each morsel delicately and then offer their necks for scritches. 

“Why so quiet, my love?” Frigga asks. She purses her lips for kisses and the ravens give her their beaks. She doesn’t look at Loki. Loki loves her for it—she knows that the scrutiny would be too much, and she’s giving him room to breathe without the weight of her gaze.

Loki sighs and takes a sip of his tea.

“It’s—”

He sighs again.

“Your brother,” Frigga says.

The warmth and understanding in her voice makes something inside him snap, and before he can stop himself he starts pouring it all out—well, not _all_ all of it, he’ll _die_ before he tells anyone about the fountain—and Frigga strokes a raven’s head with her thumb and lets him run himself empty.

“...and now he’s hanging around with _Amora_, of all people, and she’s just awful, Mother, I don’t _understand_ it, I don’t understand _any of it_—”

He stops for breath, almost dizzy, and puts his head in his hands. He feels a gentle touch, and then Frigga is tugging one of his hands into her own, and she strokes his knuckles and he grips her far back too tightly.

“I don’t understand it either,” Frigga says. “None of us do. But there is no part of me that believes Thor has forgotten you for good. I’ve watched the two of you together your entire lives. I’ve seen your hearts, both of them, and you are just as large a part of Thor’s heart as he is of yours.”

“But how do you know?” Loki asks miserably.

Frigga takes his other hand too. “Do you know,” she says, “what Thor said the first time he saw you? He said that you were the cutest baby he’d ever seen, and then he asked me if he was allowed to be your brother always.”

Loki’s heart twinges despite himself. “I was probably the only baby he’d ever seen.”

Frigga gives him a squeeze, the corner of her mouth going up just a bit. “He’s loved you from the very first. He still does. The kind of bond that you two share can’t just disappear into thin air like that. You just have to remind him.”

“Remind him,” Loki echoes.

One of the ravens nudges their hands apart looking for more crumbs, and Loki slumps back into his seat. _Remind him_.

How in Bor’s name is he supposed to do that?


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, Loki wakes slightly earlier than usual so he can nip down to the kitchen and swipe a tray of pastries. Thor is always more amenable to just about anything if he has a belly full of sweet bread.

When Thor opens his chamber door to Loki’s insistent knock, Loki is ready with the tray held high under his chin and a cheerful smile on his face.

“Hello, brother!” Loki says, bustling in before Thor can even open his mouth to tell him to come in or get out. 

It’s clear he’s roused Thor from bed; Thor is still in his smallclothes, and his hair is sticking up in the back in a way that shouldn’t be attractive and yet, infuriatingly, is. Loki sets the tray on the table and fusses with it while Thor yawns and scratches at his bare chest. Why oh why did he have to be half naked? Why oh why can’t Loki stop his pulse from fluttering at the sight?

“What’s this?” Thor says.

“Breakfast!” Loki says with false brightness. “Look, I’ve got your favorites. Cinnamon knots, buttercake, _kleinur_, apple tarts—I made sure to only take the ones made by Anna, because Gunnar’s are always crimped at the edges instead of folded and I know that you like the folded over bits the best—”

Thor picks up an apple tart and looks at it, then looks at Loki. He eats half the tart in one massive bite and chews thoughtfully.

“Did you even notice the folded—? Ugh.” Loki sighs and picks up a marchpane-filled roll for himself. “Good morning and you’re welcome, by the way.”

“Good morning,” Thor says. “It’s still strange to me that the one person in the palace I don’t know keeps barging into my rooms.”

Why does it hurt every single time Thor says something like that? Shouldn’t Loki have built up some sort of resistance to it by now? Like some sort of callous, only for words? Loki tries not to huff, or cry, or fly into a rage, which is difficult as he would really like to do all three at once. He’s going to be pleasant today, and he’s going to make Thor remember exactly what he’s missing.

“I thought to catch you early and invite you to join me today,” Loki says. “I thought perhaps we could do some of the things we used to enjoy doing together.”

The look on Thor’s face is dangerously close to pity. Loki cannot _abide_ pity.

They’re interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Thor says.

It’s Amora, and Loki’s hackles immediately rise.

“Darling, I thought you’d be dressed already—oh.” She’s just noticed Loki, who gives her a smile that he doesn’t even attempt to make look genuine. “Why is _he_ here? Well, it doesn’t matter. Thor, darling, put on some clothes. I’ve had both of our horses saddled and a lunch packed—”

“Excuse me,” Loki says through his teeth, still grimace-smiling. “My brother is going out with me this morning.”

“Nonsense, he’s going out with me, we arranged it last night.”

Amora moves further into the room to take Thor’s arm, and Loki’s thumb goes clear through his marchpane roll and sticky almond filling squirts all over his hand.

Thor takes a step back, evading Amora’s touch. She stops, a small frown on her face. Thor looks back and forth between Loki and Amora and crosses his arms.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t go out with either one of you,” Thor says. “Perhaps you’d like to go out with each other, considering how you’re both speaking about me as though I’m not here.”

“Darling—”

“_Thor_—”

Loki can’t hide the desperation in his voice. The thought of Thor sending him away is absolutely the worst thing he can think of right now. Thor glares at them both for a moment.

“Brother, please,” Loki hears himself say though he didn’t mean to, small and almost voiceless, and maybe it’s that, or the pathetic look on his face, or maybe it’s just Thor’s damnable _pity_, but Thor’s eyes soften and he uncrosses his arms.

“I feel like I do owe Loki some of my time,” Thor says. Then, to Amora, “We’ll go out later. Or tomorrow.”

“But the lunch I had packed—”

Thor waves his hand. “Share it with Lorelei.”

Amora blusters a bit, but Thor has her out the door in a moment, and Loki unclenches his hand from around his mangled pastry.

“You two really don’t like each other, do you?” Thor says, handing him a napkin, and Loki begins scrubbing his hand vigorously.

“I didn’t think you liked her either,” Loki mutters.

“Didn’t I,” Thor says, voice curiously mild and flat, and Loki looks at him askance. Maybe Thor is starting to remember something? Thor is staring at his half-eaten apple tart on the table, running his finger along the edge of the crust and looking pensive.

“Does this mean you’ll come with me?” Loki asks, trying not to sound too eager.

Thor looks up at him, and the angle of it is so like when he looked up at Loki by the fountain right before they almost... Loki swallows. Right before they almost kissed. Will that ever happen now?

“What kinds of things did we used to enjoy doing together?” Thor says.

*

_You just have to remind him_, Frigga had said. Loki is six hundred and seventy two years, eight months, and two days old, and (excluding that one phase where Thor went to Alfheim every summer for a decade to “train” and Loki went to Vanaheim every winter in retaliation) he’s spent almost every single one of those days with his brother. There are a staggering number of shared experiences to remind Thor of.

Loki drags him out into the city first. He's thinking he'll start small, remind Thor of something close to home. With that in mind, Loki takes him the tavern they usually haunt with Thor’s ghastly friends. Thor greets the owner by name, and the wait staff too, and Loki does _not_ have a nervous breakdown that Thor remembers even the cup cleaner’s name at the Lusty Stag. He doesn’t. 

Thor is still a bit stiff with Loki, and so it’s no surprise that he orders a drink, even though it’s barely past breakfast. 

Loki sits at his side at the bar and begins telling him stories. 

"Don't you remember…" Loki starts. He tells about the time they first snuck here together, two princes too young to be in a place like this, but Loki glamoured their faces and they pretended to be from some made-up world where their short statures were perfectly normal for adults thank-you-very-much, and, free from the restraints of the palace, they drank truly inadvisable amounts of ale and were sick for days after.

Thor laughs and finishes his mead. "Are you sure it was your glamour and not just my own facility with disguise?" He picks up the corner of his cloak and holds it over the bottom of his face, and Loki can't help the bark of laughter that escapes him.

The barkeep appears to refill Thor's drink, and when he retreats, Loki leans in to tell Thor something scathing about the man’s personal habits. Thor has to hide his guffaw in his mug.

Three drinks in, Thor’s broad shoulders have relaxed and he’s treating Loki more like a friend than a stranger. He persuades Loki to join him in a toast, though Loki only sips his mead while Thor is gulping. Even half a mug is enough to embolden Loki a little, though.

The common room has grown particularly noisy and he finds himself daring to lean close enough to murmur in Thor’s ear. He reminds him about the time they brought an ambassador here and almost got him killed in a bar fight and started an intergalactic war. This makes Thor laugh too, as Loki knew it would, and it makes his ears color, maybe from how close Loki’s mouth is?, and Loki feels the first stirrings of hope that this might actually work.

Loki’s wit rises to match his mood, and his retellings grow even more amusing, until Thor has to wipe tears of laughter from his eyes on more than one occasion. Thor begins prompting stories as well.

“What about the time when that lying old Xandarian tried to swindle me at dice?” Thor says. “How do you fit into that one?”

Loki has always loved making his brother laugh, and he’s always been the best at it of anyone. It appears that that still holds true even when Thor doesn’t know who Loki is.

“Did we always have such a good time together?” Thor asks him as they emerge into the late morning sun. Thor is pink-cheeked and smiling and stupidly handsome, and he slings an arm over Loki’s shoulder. Loki’s heart thrills at the touch, though he tries not to show it. Thor is physically affectionate with everyone. It isn’t special. He’s just tipsy.

“When we aren’t trying to kill each other, yes,” Loki says, which makes Thor laugh again.

“Come, then,” Thor says. “Do we have a favorite meal to share? I need some food in my belly to soak up this mead.”

Loki can’t help poking. “So we’re _we_ now?”

“Aye, we’re _we_, and _we_ need food.” Thor takes his arm back, but only to punch Loki lightly in the shoulder. “I may still feel a bit mad, what with everyone knowing you but me, but... “ 

Thor trails off, the smile falling from his face, and looks somewhere off into the distance. Loki bites his lip and wonders what this must be like from the other side. How would he react if suddenly somebody appeared in his life from thin air, and the rest of the world told him he was the crazy one? Loki is clearly the more wronged party here, but this can’t be easy for Thor either, and all things considered he’s handling it better than Loki probably would. If a strange man claiming to be his own brother showed up Loki would probably push him off the Bifrost, no matter what anyone else said. He’s suddenly overwhelmingly grateful that Thor _is_ a better man than he is, and that he’s humoring Loki with this.

Loki realizes Thor is looking at him again, that pensive look from before, and so he summons up a cheerful smile.

“Our favorite meal is on Vanaheim,” Loki says. “They make this firepot—”

Thor cuts in, excited. “The one with the numbing peppers in it?”

“And the entire duck, feet and all—”

“And that delicious thick flat bread they serve it with, I always save the last piece, because...because…” Thor frowns.

“Because it’s my favorite,” Loki says softly. 

They stare at each other for a moment, and Loki tries to project the memory into Thor’s brain through the force of sheer desperation alone. Could this be the thing that finally works? But Thor breaks their gaze and scrubs his hand over his face and grunts in frustration.

“I felt like I almost had something for a moment,” Thor says, “but it’s gone. I’m sorry.”

Loki’s smile has wilted, and all he can offer Thor is a sad tight-lipped little thing.

“No matter. Shall we go see Heimdall?”

*

Thor had told Amora he might see her later, but the day passes and Thor shows no inclination to part from Loki. They go to Vanaheim for their firepot, then stay to visit the royal bestiary. Once in their youth Loki had let the animals loose as a prank, with Thor as his watchout, and the pair of them are still banned from the grounds in perpetuity; Loki glamours them both, and they sneak in, and Loki recounts the entire tale while they goggle at captive bilgesnipes and fire-breathing bears.

Afterwards, Loki persuades Thor to go find the waterfall with the purple grass, the one he’d mentioned in desperation when he and Sif had been trying to jog Thor’s memories.

“But I flew there with Mjolnir,” Thor says, fingering the strap of the hammer perpetually hanging at his side.

“I know,” Loki says.

“Can you fly as well?”

“I can’t.”

Loki looks at him expectantly and wills Thor to _remember, please for pity’s sake_. When Thor just looks at him, still at a loss, Loki tells his pathetic fluttery heart to calm down and steps in close to Thor’s side.

“Your arm,” Loki says, looking at Thor’s free hand, and then pointing his chin behind him.

“My...arm…”

This close, Loki can smell Thor’s soap. Thor’s arm comes up haltingly, and Loki raises his eyebrows in encouragement. Then Thor’s arm is around his shoulders, pulling him in close, and Loki sighs and puts his own arms around his brother’s waist.

“Like this?” Thor says softly, beginning to spin Mjolnir.

Loki closes his eyes and presses his cheek to Thor’s shoulder. 

“LIke this.”

*

After Vanaheim, they cajole a long-suffering Heimdall into sending them to Nornheim, and Midgard, and Alfheim. Despite the fact that Thor has yet to regain a single actual memory of Loki, Loki finds himself growing happier and happier, in some language where “happy” means “full of nervous excitement, cautious optimism, and the growing certainty that your brother is flirting with you.”

Thor’s arm around his shoulder becomes a near constant thing.

“Tell me what we did _here_,” Thor murmurs in Loki’s ear, over and over, “And _here_. And surely you were the prettiest one _here_? Well I have eyes, don’t I?”

Maybe, even if Thor never recovers his memory, things might be alright. Maybe as painful as losing the past is, they can make new memories going forward, and Loki will still be Loki, Brother of Thor, and not Loki, Brother of No One.

It’s midnight, and they’re back on Asgard, and they’d intended to go back to the palace, but partway down the Bifrost Thor suddenly scoops Loki up. Loki shrieks and clings to him and, both of them laughing, Thor throws them into the sky. He brings them down outside the city, at the river they’ve been swimming in since they were old enough to talk. They run whooping to the water, shedding clothing as they go, and dive in. Loki swims to the bottom and goes for Thor’s ankles, and Thor pulls him out of the water one-handed and tosses him into the air, and Loki splashes back and tackles him into the water. They come out panting and dripping and flop into the long cool grass to stare up at the stars.

“Thank you for this,” Thor says. “For trying. I know I’m as thick as a boulder.”

“Stop,” Loki says, flicking water at him.

“I just can’t…” Thor sighs, and grows serious. “I can’t make it all add up. Why I have this entire life in my head that you’re not in, when it’s obvious that we share so much.”

“It’ll come in time,” Loki says. “It has to. You felt something today, right?”

Thor is still looking at the stars, but Loki is looking at Thor. He’s silver in the moonlight. _His color_. It suits him. If Loki were allowed, he’d touch the tip of his finger to that furrow in his brother’s brow, run it down around the tip of his nose, over his lips, all the way down to the apple of his throat. He’d retrace the path with his mouth. Norns, but he loves Thor so much. Is in love with him. Loki’s heart flips over in his chest.

Thor’s voice is a little rough. “You say we’re brothers, but…”

He turns his head to look at Loki. He’s so beautiful that Loki wants to die.

Loki doesn’t know if he’s imagining things here in the dark, but he could swear Thor’s gaze flicks down to his mouth.

“But what?” Loki whispers, breathless.

_Kiss me_, he pleads silently, feeling suddenly like everything hinges on this one instant. That maybe they’re living a fairy tale, and that true love’s kiss can break the spell.

Thor finally tears his gaze away to turn back to the stars. 

“...It’s nothing. Forgive me.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go lovelies, hope you enjoy ❤️

Loki isn’t sure why he didn’t realize he was in love with Thor sooner. Of course he is. Why wouldn’t he be? Why wouldn’t he be stupidly, pathetically, miserably in love with the one person he’s not allowed to, and who currently doesn’t know Loki from a hole in the ground?

If this was happening to anyone else, Loki would laugh his arse off.

Amora manages to poach Thor away before Loki can get to him the next morning. It ruins the entire day. The next one is ruined as well, though not by Amora; Loki manages to catch Thor with some more pastries, but Thor is already on his way out, summoned by Odin, and Loki can do nothing but watch him go.

“Tomorrow?” Thor says, and he even looks like he might mean it.

When Lorelei comes sidling up to him at court that afternoon, Loki is in as bad a mood as he’s ever been.

She hands him a flute of something alcoholic and bubbly and he doesn’t immediately pour it all over her dress, which is commendable of him, he thinks.

“To what do I owe the displeasure today?” Loki says, sniffing his drink. Alfish pink champagne. Tacky. And disgusting.

Lorelei only laughs behind her hand.

“I was wondering if you might accompany me to the tourney at week’s end?” she says, and sips her own drink.

Loki has forgotten completely that there was going to be a tourney. In his defense, he’s been very distracted.

“Whyever would I want to do that?”

Lorelei tosses her hair over her shoulder and inches closer to him. Loki inches away.

“Well, Amora is going with Thor, and I thought perhaps we ought to make it a double date?” She’s pitched her voice as sweetly as she can, and it makes Loki’s skin crawl. Then her words register and his stomach flips. Thor is going with Amora? Loki has a brief vision of himself striding into the middle of the court, dashing his expensive crystal flute on the ground, and screaming until the pillars collapse and crush everyone here, including him.

Instead, he smiles and takes a sip of champagne, which he immediately regrets and spits back into his glass before he can help it, though he tries to hide it with a cough.

“A double date, then,” he says, and watches Lorelei's lip curl in satisfaction. Maybe at the tourney he can set Amora and Lorelei at each other’s throats and they’ll just kill each other and leave him and Thor in peace.

“Cheers,” Lorelei says, lifting her drink, and watching expectantly for Loki to do the same.

“Cheers,” Loki says. He sidesteps to avoid someone else nearly knocking into them, and just barely manages to not spill his drink all over the man, then takes the opportunity to ditch Lorelei in the crowd.

He pours the rest of the drink into a potted plant the first moment he gets.

*

Loki is stalking down the hallway when he notices the taste in his mouth. It’s acrid and smoky with an undercurrent of something that tastes _wrong_, and his tongue tingles. He changes course and heads straight back to his rooms, where he examines his tongue in the mirror. It looks fine. Pink. He scrapes it with his nail. Is that a blue film on his nail or is it just leftover ink?

Is he newly allergic to cheap champagne?

He only took one sip, and he didn’t even swallow it.

Lorelei gave him that drink. 

He sticks his tongue out in the mirror again, making an exaggerated _ahhh_ sound to see the back of it. Lorelei tried to toast him, watched him to see if he drank it. Now, fifteen minutes later, his entire mouth tastes like electrified garbage.

Did Lorelei just try to _poison_ him?

Something is tickling the back of his mind.

Loki spits into his wash basin and rinses his mouth out, and then again and again, until he can’t taste the acridness anymore. Is he feeling lightheaded or is he just working himself up? Is he being paranoid? Lorelei is always trying to find excuses to hang around him. Surely she wouldn’t actively try to poison him?

He thinks back to the last time he saw her. That night at the Midsummer Ball. She’d been trying to talk to him, but he hadn’t been listening to what she was saying, because he had been too busy watching Thor—_who was sharing a drink with Amora_—

His blood runs cold.

But no. The healers tested Thor for every poison in existence, and every curse as well. It couldn’t be something he drank?

And yet.

Loki smacks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. The taste is gone, but the tingling is still there. He turns on his heel, and strides out into the hallway, bellowing for a page.

“Where is the Lady Lorelei right this very instant?” Loki demands.

*

She’s in the gardens with some of the other courtiers, and Loki comes up her behind silent as a shadow and grabs hold of her elbow.

“Terribly sorry,” he says as charmingly as he can to the rest of her little group, and steers her away with an iron grip.

“What was in that drink?” he hisses in her ear. 

“Ow! It was just—stop that, you’re going to tear my sleeve—it wasn’t much of anything—”

Lok’s grip on her arm tightens.

“It was just something that Amora had,” Lorelei says, trying to pout, and Loki is incredulous that she thinks she can flirt her way out of anything right now. “I don’t know what it’s called.”

“Are you a liar or just an idiot?” Loki demands.

Lorelei yanks her arm out of Loki’s grip and turns on him, her expression finally souring.

“I’m not lying.”

“Wonderful, you’re just so incredibly simple-minded that you put things in people’s drinks without knowing what they _are_—”

“I know what it does! ...I just don’t know what it’s called.”

“And what,” Loki bites out, “does it do?”

She squints at him. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be lucid right now…”

“Did she give it to Thor?”

Lorelei goes silent and Loki grabs her arms and only barely stops himself from shaking her until her teeth rattle.

“_Did she give it to Thor?_”

“...Yes?”

Loki shoves himself away, nearly toppling both of them into the bushes. He’s incoherent with rage, and opens his mouth multiple times to start speaking before finally putting his fists on his hips and screwing his jaw up and forcing himself to breathe.

“Where is she?” he finally manages to grate out. “Your sister? _Where is she?_”

*

Amora is staying at a guest apartment in the palace. Her wards are pathetic and weak. Loki breaks them with a wave of his hand. She’s at her desk, writing something, but she leaps up when Loki storms in without knocking.

“It was _you_,” Loki snarls.

Amora stares at him for a moment, wide-eyed.

The next thing Loki knows, he’s being knocked backward by her seidr and she’s trying to make a break for the door—trying, but failing, because Loki’s knives are already out. The first flies past her nose and stops her short, the second pins her sleeve to the door, and then he’s grabbing her wrist and yanking her back to trap her against the desk with the third pressed to her throat.

“Tell me exactly what you did and why and _fix it_ and _maybe_ I won’t have you executed,” Loki says harshly.

Amora stares at him for a moment, and Loki doesn’t like what he sees in her face.

He presses the knife harder against her throat.

“What did you give him?”

She swallows against the blade and looks him dead in the eye.

“Water from the River Lethe.”

“Do you think that I’m an idiot?” Loki says. “If you fed him Lethe water he wouldn’t even remember his own name.” 

“Put that knife away and I’ll explain it to you.”

“Explain it to me and I’ll put the knife away.”

They glare at each other, and then in one swift motion Amora twists Loki’s wrist and ducks out from underneath his hold. He’s already pulling his arm back to throw the knife at her, but stops when he realizes she’s not running or trying to attack him. She rubs at her throat where the blade kissed her. Any fear that she had when Loki burst in is gone, and the look in her eye is calculating. Loki feels his first twinge of nervousness.

“I’ll tell you,” Amora says. “But only because it’s not working. And because...well, you’ll see why. You’ll find it _incredibly interesting._”

“Get on with it,” Loki growls, “and I’ll tell you if I find it _interesting_ or not.”

“It _was_ Lethe water. I steeped it with crystallized shards of love potion.”

Lethe is one of the primordial rivers—the River of Memory. Obtaining it is dangerous, storing it is nearly impossible, and even one drop of it is enough to make a grown adult forget their entire life.

“That still doesn’t make sense,” Loki says. “It would still wipe his brain completely. You’re lucky that handling it didn’t wipe _your_ brain completely.”

“Of course it would. That’s why I diluted it until not a single molecule of the original remained...only the memory of it in the water. I gave him one drop of the dilution.”

“How could the water remember it? Lethe makes things _forget_.”

“You like to call me an idiot, but you’re the one who’s being thick. Of course water can remember, otherwise Lethe would forget itself and cease to exist. You’re not very adept at potions, are you?”

Loki’s head hurts and he’s growing angrier by the second, if that’s even possible. Potions aren’t his strong suit, it’s true, and as a general rule he tries not to fool around with things that have the ability to turn him into a drooling infant. If Amora really did use Lethe though, it would explain why no seidr had been able to detect it in Thor. It could make even seidr forget.

“So you, what, you give Thor this improbable dilution of love-potion-tinged-Lethe? For what purpose?”

“I wanted him for myself—” Amora starts, and Loki snorts. That much has been obvious for years. She gives him a long-suffering look and continues. “It was obvious he was preoccupied with someone else, and I thought that if I could just get whoever it was out of the way, he might actually give me the time of day…”

“No matter which love potion you used, nothing in that concoction would make him stay in your presence for more than five seconds,” Loki says flatly.

“Touchy,” Amora says while Loki bristles. “I imprinted my name into the water’s memory. It was supposed to make him forget the person he loves the most—_romantically_,” she says pointedly, “—and suggest me as a replacement. The stronger the love, the more complete the effect. I was sure that he was going to turn up the next morning a bit fuzzy on one of the women at court, and then I would have my chance, but…” She trails off suggestively. “He forgot _you_.”

Loki feels like Amora has just run him through with a spear. 

The person Thor loves the most. The stronger the love the more complete the effect. Thor has forgotten Loki, and he’s forgotten him _completely_. 

Loki’s vision feels strange. He wants to clutch at his breast, tear at his hair. He wants to fall to the ground and weep with the enormity of it.

But Amora is looking at him with one perfectly arched blonde eyebrow, and he has to hold himself together.

Loki feels ill. Of course Amora is telling him all of this. She’s having the time of her life telling him all of this. She _knows_ the thing that Loki would kill or die to hide. And she wants Loki to know that she knows, and she’s going to hold this over him for the rest of his life. Even though he and Thor haven’t even done anything. They haven’t even—haven’t even—

Gods.

The person Thor loves the most. Loki sees Thor’s face framed by moonflower blossoms at their fountain, tilting up to kiss him. Thor on the riverbank, _You say we’re brothers, but…_.

“Cat got your tongue?” Amora says. “I don’t hear any denials from you. How very _interesting._ Don’t you think so?”

Loki resists rising to her bait, and gropes backwards in the conversation.

“You said it didn’t work, though,” Loki says, his voice only a little shaky. 

Amora crosses her arms and scowls. “Your brother...ugh. Even when you were finally off his mind you were on it again, because the whole palace became obsessed with how the Crown Prince had been cursed, and everyone was determined to shove you right back into his face. How was I ever supposed to make any progress? I’d get him alone, and he’d be all—” and here she mimics Thor’s voice “_—forgive me, but I can’t stop thinking about Loki. Forgive me. Forgive me._ It was impossible to get anywhere with him. If anything, it was almost _worse_ than before.”

Loki’s frazzled mind can barely make sense of any of it, but there’s one thing that’s perfectly clear.

“Have you told anyone?” Loki grates out. 

Amora laughs. “That Thor is in love with his weaselly little brother? Why would I? I had him, he was finally mine—”

The words fly from Loki’s mouth like daggers before he can stop them. “He will _never_ be yours.”

Amora doesn’t laugh this time. “I know that now. But we’re at an impasse, aren’t we? I know your secret and now you know mine, and you need me if you ever want your brother to remember you again.”

“What exactly are you suggesting?” 

“You don't tell anyone I magically assaulted a high-ranking member of the royal family, and I don't tell anyone you're in love with your brother.”

“Who said I was in love with Thor?” Loki says. “This is about Thor loving—being in love with—me.” His tongue trips over the words. He can’t believe he’s said that out loud. 

The gently condescending look that Amora gives him makes him want to hit things.

“If both of us swear a binding oath never to speak of this to anyone, I’ll give you the antidote,” Amora says. “But I need something from you in return.”

Loki’s stomach is a nest of snakes. He should kill her rather than let her go with this secret, even if she does swear a binding oath. But that won’t bring Thor back to him, and he wants Thor back, desperately. When she’d said the word “antidote” he’d gotten a rush of relief so heady he’d seen stars.

Loki is certain that there’s a trap or a trick in this somewhere, and that he might rue this, no, will almost definitely rue this, but if there’s even a chance…

“I’m listening.”

*

Loki is on his way to Thor. A little glass vial is clutched tightly in his sweaty fist. His heart is knocking against his ribs.

They need to be somewhere private for this, and so Loki waited until evening, when Thor would be in his rooms, his duties for the day discharged, his belly full of dinner, Loki’s belly empty, too full of nerves to eat.

But Thor hadn’t been in his rooms. Loki had knocked, and when no one answered he entered uninvited, and there had been no one there. The window was open though, a warm summer breeze fluttering the curtain, and when Loki walked over to look out he saw what Thor must have seen. The gardens. The maze. The moonflowers, on their last blossoms.

_The fountain,_ Loki thinks. The place they always used to go when they were feeling sad, overwhelmed, stressed. When they needed to think. And Thor isn't having an easy time of this either. 

So Loki’s steps are carrying him down the same paths he and Thor had followed on Midsummer, and his thoughts are racing, and anxiety is mounting in his throat.

_If this doesn’t work, I’ll kill her._

Loki’s pulse jumps when he rounds the last corner. Thor is there, leaning on the fountain, in his sleep clothes, as though he’d tried to go to bed and given it up as a bad job—soft lounging tunic and leggings, barefoot, his hair loose around his shoulders and falling into his face. It’s almost like the sheer force of Loki’s desire has projected Thor here. It would almost be more inconceivable at this point if Thor _wasn’t_ here. He’s framed perfectly by the moonflower vines growing up the hedge behind him, wreathing him in glowing white.

Loki freezes, breathing too harshly. Thor straightens and turns to him, and smiles to break Loki’s heart. It’s a little hopeless, that smile. Loki mirrors it back to him.

“Loki,” Thor says. “Of course you knew of this place too. I’m sorry. I fear I still have no new memories to give you.”

Loki thumbs the top off the vial. Thor’s hair is silver in the moonlight, his lashes so dark, his eyes so sad. Norns, Loki is so nervous. What if it doesn’t work? What if Amora was lying? What if this just makes everything worse?

Her voice echoes in his head. _”The only way to reverse the effect is this counter-potion, but it won’t work unless it’s delivered by the object of the original spell.”_

“Perhaps I have some I can give you,” Loki says.

Even if everything goes wrong afterwards, Loki is going to get at least one thing that he wants first. In two steps he’s in Thor’s space. He pours the potion into his mouth, reaches up to grab Thor’s face, and, here where it should have happened the first time, pulls him down into a kiss.

For a moment, Thor goes rigid.

It makes Loki kiss him even more desperately, fisting his hands in Thor’s tunic, going up on tiptoe. Loki licks against his mouth. Thor needs to let him in. He needs to...he needs…

Thor’s lips part. Their tongues sweep against each other. The scent of the moonflowers is overwhelming,

_Taste it_, Loki thinks. He’s been holding the antidote in his mouth, and he shares it with Thor, licking into his mouth, letting it flow between them. _Taste me. It’s me, this is me, this is us..._

Thor makes a noise, and Loki’s hands move up from his tunic to his hair, burying themselves in the loose waves. Gods. He whimpers, and finds himself melting against Thor’s front, trying to mold them together, and Thor’s lips are hot on his own, and Thor is kissing him back. If Loki never kissed anyone again, it would be worth it to have this one be his last.

He finally pulls back, trembling.

“Thor?” Loki asks, voice smaller than he’d like. Did it work?

"Brother," Thor chokes out, and crushes Loki to him.

*

They go back to Thor’s rooms and lock the door behind them and kiss for...hours. And they cry, and Loki tells Thor what happened, or at least as much of it as he can, because the oath that he and Amora swore is bound in blood and there are parts he simply can’t say.

Thor remembers everything that happened while he was cursed.

“I’m sorry,” Thor says over and over. He kisses Loki’s cheeks, his mouth, his neck. Loki cries, and Thor kisses his tears. He laughs, and Thor kisses his knuckles and his wrists and makes him laugh again.

Loki is in love with his brother, and his brother is in love with him.

They fall into Thor’s bed together. Loki runs his hands up Thor’s arms, over the thick corded muscle of his biceps and into the armholes of his tunic to scrape his nails over the skin of Thor’s back. Thor pushes a massive thigh between Loki’s legs.

It’s better than Loki ever dreamed it would be. Thor’s hands on his naked flesh make him feel something he’s never felt in all his long years of life, and when he finally sinks into his brother’s body they both cry.

Afterwards, Loki lounges on his back in a contented, boneless puddle, every part of him aching pleasantly. Thor is sitting on the edge of the bed, equally naked, and Loki keeps putting his feet on him, making him laugh and squirm.

Thor stills Loki’s attack by taking hold of his ankle and stroking it. His face grows serious.

“What did Amora demand from you?” Thor asks. “She never does something for nothing.”

Loki hadn’t spoken of this, because of the oath, but Thor has always been a keen one. Even this can’t dampen Loki’s mood, though.

“Don’t worry about it,” Loki says. He smiles, thinking of the little surprise he gave Amora when they finally parted, Amora to leave Asgard entirely for at least awhile, and how if she ever does find a way to bend the oath...well. It won’t be pretty for her, but it will be absolutely hilarious for him.

_”How did you figure it out, anyway?”_ Amora had said, and, _”You really ought to keep closer tabs on your potions and your little sister,”_ Loki had responded, _”she tried to poison me with it.”_ He hoped the two of them were off somewhere right now arguing to the death.

“Why are you smiling?” Thor says.

Loki deflects. “I’m thinking about that noise you made when—”

Thor’s ears flame red, and he goes on the attack, swiftly moving to cover Loki’s body with his own, and kissing him to make him be quiet.

“Mmm, brother, I approve of your diversionary tactics,” Loki says, wrapping one leg around the back of Thor’s knee.

Thor nuzzles into his neck and then blows a raspberry on it and makes Loki shriek.

“What was that about noises?” Thor says. He rubs the tips of their noses together. “I approve of your diversionary tactics as well. But you will tell me? At some point?”

“At some point,” Loki agrees.

Thor’s thumb is stroking his cheek, and Loki leans into it and closes his eyes.

“It was so odd…” Thor says. He lets his fingers trail down Loki’s cheek, down his neck, to his chest. “I didn’t know you, and yet… There was an emptiness. I felt like there was something missing, and it ached. I thought it couldn’t be you, because everyone told me we were brothers, and… the way I felt when I thought about that emptiness...I thought, surely it is no _brother_ whose lack wounds me so...and yet, I wanted it to be you…”

Loki covers Thor’s hand with his own and blinks back tears.

“You know my heart now,” Thor says. “That this is...more than just a diversion for me. Is it...the same for you?”

And, even after all of it, Loki wants to lie. It’s too big. But he can’t, not with Thor overwhelming him like this. Not with the way he’s fallen to pieces in the last two weeks. Falsehood here would be cheap, no matter how much of him the truth exposes.

“You fool,” Loki says softly. “This is no diversion. This is...everything.”

Thor’s face lights into a smile, and Loki can’t help but kiss him again. This one grows deep, until they’re both panting and gasping. They fit themselves together again and shudder apart for a second time in each other’s arms, and Loki knows the truth of his own words. This _is_ everything, and he’ll fight to keep it. To the death, if he has to.

They’re drowsing in the small hours of the morning. They've come for each other a third and a fourth time, and learned each other's taste. Thor is running his fingertips down Loki’s damp forearm, over and over.

Smiling, Loki tucks himself more firmly into his brother’s side.

"Don't forget me again," Loki murmurs.

"Never," Thor swears, and Loki believes him.

They'll write each other's names into every atom of their bodies. Thor will never forget again, and Loki won't either.

Even Lethe will be no match.

*

**Author's Note:**

> come yell with me at <http://twitter.com/thunderingraven>


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